Page 75 of Cruel Promise
“This everything?” The sooner we get this over with, the sooner I can leave.
Mom doesn’t look at me, but she does take a heavy drink from her wine glass. Why is she even here? She hasn’t spoken to me in months. Neither of them has. I’m surprised they didn’t ask me to mail in the papers and save everyone the trouble of being here right now.
“It is,” my dad says. “We just need your signature and then we…” he trails off, but I don’t need him to finish. Like the two of them, I’m aware of why we’re here.
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I tear open the packet and make quick work signing my name on all the lines their attorney’s bothered to highlight in yellow. I don’t waste time reading over the documents. This benefits me more than it does them. The sooner we get this over with, the better.
My grandparents set up a trust for my brother and I when we were kids. Nothing crazy, but education has always been a big deal in our family and they wanted to make sure my brother and I had the means to go to college.
If my grandparents were still around, I think they’d be proud to learn I earned a full ride to PacNorth to play soccer. I don’t need their money for school. Not that it makes it any less mine.
When Carlos passed away, his portion became mine as well. Something about it being a joint account. With one brother gone, the rest falls to the other.
There are stipulations on the account. Carlos and I both gained access when we turned eighteen, but only for expenses directly related to college and each withdrawal requires my parents’ consent. Carlos never had the chance to spend so much as a penny and I’ve never touched a dime. I never needed to. Since I don’t need the money for school, I shouldn’t have access to the account until after my twenty-fifth birthday. But that’s three years from now and for my parents, it’s three years of being tied to me, too many.
They’ve decided to sign over the account early. A few signatures here and there and I no longer need their consent to access any of it. I’ll have more money than I could need as a senior in college, and they’ll have no reason to see me again.
For them, it’s a win-win.
Sometimes I wish I saw it that way.
Closing the packet, I shove the papers back into the envelope and drop it down on the countertop.
“Anything else?”
Dad shakes his head. I turn to Mom, silently begging her to say something, anything. Fuck, I’d be happy if she’d just acknowledged my fucking existence, but she still won’t look at me. She sits there, quietly drinking her wine like she can’t be bothered. I shouldn’t have expected anything less. Mom checked out of my life years ago. I rub the ache in my chest, hating that after all this time, her indifference still affects me. I don’t get it. You’d think after losing one kid, they’d fight harder for the other, but instead, they throw me away. It’s hard to believe they ever cared about me at all.
“You know…” I shake my head and suck on my teeth. I should drop it. Let this shit go and move on with my life.
My eyes bore into her. I can’t, though. This is fucked up. I don’t deserve to be treated like this. No one does.
“It’s not my fault we share the same face.”
Mom flinches but doesn’t turn my way. Her throat bobs as she swallows another mouthful of wine, probably wishing I’d hurry up and leave already, but why should I? It’s not my problem, she's uncomfortable. That the very site of me, her own fucking son, makes her ill. How does she think it is for me? Waking up and seeing his face every fucking day?
She’ll get what she wants soon enough. Once I walk out that door, she can go back to pretending she never had kids. That I’m not her son. That she didn’t abandon me when my world was already falling apart. And that making me sign these papers isn’t her way of stabbing the knife already buried deeper into my chest.
“Just like it’s not my fault he’s gone.”
Silence.
“It’s not my fault he was selfish. Or that he fucked our family over.”
“Gabriel—” My father’s voice is soft, pleading with me not to fight this. Not to make a scene.
I turn to look at him. “None of this is my fault!” I remind him. “Yet you two are so fucking intent on punishing me for Carlos’s sins, anyway.”
He hangs his head but says nothing and I don’t bother to stick around. All it does is lead to more disappointment.
Grabbing my helmet from the hall, I slam the door behind me, the sound reverberating against my back. I give my childhood home one last look as I climb on my bike.
Fuck them. I didn’t need my brother. I sure as hell don’t need them.
Cecilia
In case you were wondering, talk is code word for threaten, blackmail, and basically, go out of your way to ruin my life. I should have seen this coming.
“Hey.” I wave.
